Gould Pointing 2According to media reports, Senator Ron Gould says that he would have supported the ballot referral of a three-year increase in the sales tax in exchange for a three-year phase out of the state income tax.  We have to admit, we honestly had no idea.  So much has been made of the Senator’s absolute refusal to support any increase in taxes and so much coverage in the media and on the blogs was focused on the single-minded purity of his votes against it, that we never even considered the possibility that he would vote to refer Brewer’s tax hike to the ballot.

If what the Senator is saying is true then much of his absolute language regarding the referral must be taken with a rather large grain of salt.  If his offer was genuine, then he was in fact willing to vote to refer the sales tax increase to the ballot, so all of his vocal and rather scathing critiques of his fellow legislators ring somewhat hollow.  On the other hand, if he was merely tweaking the Senate President by asking for something so out of reach that he knew in advance he could not get it, then his protestations at this point that he was somehow reasonable and amenable to a deal are likely disingenuous at best.

Naturally, any insistence on eliminating the state income tax over three years would have make the entire deal unworkable because it would have dramatically increased the state’s deficit, leaving the Legislature farther from the solution instead of closer to it.  But one assumes that Gould’s rational for supporting such a package would have been that a) the tax referral could always be voted down, and b) the size of the tax cuts would have been greater than the sales tax increase, and they would have lasted long after the sales tax increase had ended.  Ironically, the same arguments were made for the conservative package that Gould voted against.  It had hundreds of millions of dollars in tax cuts for individuals and businesses, as well as property tax cuts, all to boost the economy.  And it cut more in taxes than the sales tax increase would have raised, assuming it would even pass.

What is clear is that Senator Gould has nothing good to say about any Republicans who would have exchanged larger, lasting tax cuts, for a referral of a shorter, smaller tax increase.  He has even been quoted as saying “If Republicans do a tax increase, our party’s dead. The voters will throw us out if we do a tax increase.”  The fact that he proposed to make the very same kind of deal is more than just curious, even to seasoned Capitol observers that have grown accustomed to the public posturing of politicians.